The Many Times
by hewhoistomriddle
Summary: ...Itachi tried to kill Uchiha Shisui. Written for the bitter nakano exchange on LJ. Crack.


**Summary: **The drowning thing was a lucky fluke in a series of failed attempts.  
**Rating: **PG-13 for attempted murder.  
**Disclaimer:** All Naruto characters herein are the property of Kishimoto Masashi. No copyright infringement is intended.  
**Warnings: **Fat Madara. Trivializing of serious matters. Ripped-off characterizations and references to other fics. Shifting POVs which refused to be fixed.  
**Word Count: **5000+  
**Author's Notes: **I extend my eternal soul many thanks to **ronsard** and **nthcoincident** for all their help in correcting my sick, lecherous handling (possibly rape) of the ItaShi pairing in particular and the English language in general. You are awesome, and I love you like Itachi loves Shisui. Without the killing. This was written for the **bitter_nakano** exchange in livejournal that I somehow got suckered into (possibly willingly) for **yira_heerai**.

So!

* * *

**The Many Times Itachi Tried To Kill Shisui**

* * *

ANBU, according to its elite and elitist membership, a small and mildly sociopathic group with a tendency to anemia, is far and away the most awe-inspiring and badass organization in the history of the Hidden Leaf.

It boasts the greatest collection of stuffed heads of missing-nin, presently collecting dust; the grand prize in the Everything-Goes Konoha's Got Talent competition; and the _only _administrative team daring enough to combat the backlog of unfinished paperwork from the second ninja war onwards.

ANBU – _"it's not that we're better than you, except we totally are" _– unfortunately is also, now and forevermore, victim of the universal flaw of all bureaucratic institutions; that is, in the presence of superiors, the valiant and the fearless shrivel down into either dark soulless wraiths or twitchy paranoid klutzes.

(Either way, it is clear they are in need of psychotherapy and sympathy.)

This becomes apparent the moment Danzo sashays into the secret base, fronted by a lewd-looking motel for the sake of secrecy if not dignity, exploiting Konoha's reputation. Following the commander's entrance, faces recede into themselves, smiles invert into constipated-looking expressions of rapt attention, childhoods flash before numerous eyes. Shoulders get mauled as ANBU tattooists lose all semblance of chakra control and ink the ANBU flame with the force of thundering Bijuu. A sealing goes awry and animal hair begins spurting out in a fountain from the scroll.

An intern moves to incinerate the fur but ends up setting fire to the entire espionage department, whose black-cloaked members scuttle out baring claws and fangs and great bat wings before disappearing again.

Danzo marches into the room with the grace of an aging rockstar, with too much pomp and too little glitz, his hypothetical black cloaking sweeping after him. He regards them all imperiously.

_What gay shit is this? _His gaze seems to say. Someone immediately _katons _an incriminating pile of coded mission plans, which was most assuredly not gay porn but sort-of looks like it, stacked against the wall.

Behind Danzo trails a pinched-looking boy with too much hair and too little clothing, repeatedly muttering "dickless" under his breath. The word does not seem to bother the commander at all, seeding rumors regarding all those times spent under the knife.

As Danzo walks along the room with excruciating slowness – because, _Kami_, everyone knows the man can move like a hurricane at high speed whenever the village budget meetings roll around – he beckons to Itachi to follow.

Treading warily, since the Head Office of the ANBU is enemy territory as any foreign battlement and far more precarious, Itachi takes up his gear – including the obligatory crucifix and other more arcane relics – and complies.

* * *

Itachi is a boy scarred by war, perpetually tumbling along its rents and craters, trapped in its nightmare. He remembers the awful stench of the shelters where the young pissed everywhere and the elderly passed gas way too much, the nights he was forced to stay up and keep watch and get the most horrific bags under his eyes the next morning. He has seen countless men and women fall on the roadside, exacerbating his neuroses regarding corpse-associated pathogens into a full-blown trauma.

Itachi is the rare species of ninja who hates war and is thus optimal for manipulating into accomplishing violence for the sake of a laughably unstable peace.

This Danzo knows well. The Konoha Times had been only too happy to do a feature.

"We are aware of what the Uchiha are up to," starts Danzo, disturbingly close to putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, as though tactile contact alone is able to pass along the unspeakable message.

"Sir," Itachi interrupts respectfully, deftly maintaining his personal space, "If this is about the takeover of the public baths – the plumbing at the compound had gone haywire. The clan has already begun making reparations –"

"That is none of ANBU's concern."

Itachi stares at him searchingly for a moment before dutifully lowering his eyes. This was, in fact, a classic technique for Uchihas to prepare for battle without anyone knowing, exclusive to only those who are able to activate the Sharingan without the inconvenient doorbell sound.

_So it begins. _

Danzo sneers at the horrified pallor of Itachi's skin.

"It is not about the coup d'état either – although that is _also_ a most pressing issue – this is about the rabid megalomaniac jumping your family's ranks and the current imminent threat to national security. I believe you know him –_ Uchiha Shisui. _"

_Well…_ Itachi certainly hadn't seen this coming.

Uchiha Shisui, while indeed a rising star among the Uchiha - especially since he pulled in a monstrous revenue at the family bake sale mainly from selling cupcakes in his image, and triumphed at the annual modeling competition by virtue of Itachi being too (short) self-respecting to enter - is certainly not some iron-fisted megalomaniac or any sort of threat to anyone but himself. While hailed as a prodigy, he has no exceptional jutsu to speak of.

Besides, Shisui is gracious. Shisui is amiable. Shisui is _nice_.

At least, this is what his information source in the clan (Sasuke, who is a conniving little gossip) reports. Shisui is not among Itachi's own nearest and dearest, predictably, if there were even such a list. Save for the occasions on which he disengages from ANBU duty to catch up with the clan's (sometimes literal) affairs and wade the murky and moldy pool of Uchiha politics, Itachi did not rub shoulders with Uchiha Shisui at all.

The surreptitious spying on his cousin's training regimen, which was very much_ not stalking_, was merely the pull of genius on genius.

Itachi pauses his internal contemplation to listen to Danzo finish:

"…fix Uchiha Shisui on a date with death."

* * *

Unfortunately, in a glitch of pure chance and not any sort of jealous fury, Itachi's brain fizzles out at the word _date_. Rapidly backing up, it misinterprets a mission command for the first time ever since having Morino Ibiki as commander.

(The man's tongue had been freshly cut out for the umpteenth time and their mission had been to retrieve it. No logical mind would have processed the information.)

The result was Itachi making clandestine deals with restaurateurs, florists, matchmakers and hitmen (for no special reason but to continually radiate killing intent to the couple in question) to set Shisui up with a hoard of impossible candidates – not limited to all three Sannin, the fourth Kazekage and his mother, and the visiting psychopath from Kirigakure.

Danzo realizes the need for clarification before long – that is, when the Kirigakure girl starts raining acid on Hokage mountain – giving the Fourth a cadaverous look.

Itachi blinks at the revelation, neatly disposes of brochures for a couple of trendy bistros in Kumogakure, and – only a tad cold-bloodedly – agrees to the mission.

And then the real fun begins.

* * *

The next time Itachi pays a visit to Madara's lair – which, in reality, is only a forest clearing drowned in genjutsu – bearing news of the latest gossip ("The Third Kazekage is a Puppet Leader!") and the latest fashion trends, and his mission, Madara does not immediately permit him entry through the chakra barriers.

This is unusual.

"Let me gather myself first," There is an uncharacteristic high note in Uchiha Madara's voice, bearing too close a resemblance to hysterics for comfort.

The mask appears in mid-air, Sharingan-eye glowing within, performs a retina scan on Itachi and disappears.

There is the sound of padding footsteps, and then Madara's great bulk emerges.

Itachi immediately closes his eyes and makes the seal to break illusions. The sight that assaults his sensibilities – and throws them without abandon over the moon – remains mercilessly unchanged.

A thoroughly fat Uchiha Madara stands – or sits, in horror, Itachi realizes _he can't tell_ – grandiosely before him, the ground piteously groaning under its feet.

"I don't even know what happened!" wails the obesity that can _no way in hell_ be his ancestor, since Uchiha genetics would never allow it, looking most distraught.

A few years ago, the Fourth had the rare brainstorm that assails so very few ninja. Valiantly reading through the acrobatic theories of physics and the parasites – such as himself – who regularly defy it, he supposed that as one approached the speed of light, bending the continuum, mass increased.

This moment, Madara, who often ballerinas through the fabric of space-time, proves the theory right by gaining enough flab to put an elephant to shame. If his ultimate goal is to be the moon, well, this was a stellar beginning.

"Have you anything to say, Itachi?" Madara asks in a dangerous tone, having regained his composure, padding over to lean against a tree that promptly cracks against his intimidating girth. He brushes himself off with admirable aplomb.

_ANBU has a marvellous collection of slimming teas, Madara-san, as the breastplates are non-resizable. Perhaps I could interest you in… _

Common sense intervenes.

"I was tasked to kill Uchiha Shisui."

"Really?" Madara leaps up from the boulder he'd been inclining on, causing a small earthquake. Cracked-off bits of rock rise and revolve around him, attracted by his gravitational field. "I mean –_ I approve_. Although I am certain to know already, being the legend that I am, why pray tell does Konoha's top brass want Shisui-kun eliminated?"

While Itachi repeats Danzo's words verbatim, Madara is silent.

Madra _ruminates_ deeply on the matter, like a cow, a fat one.

"Whilst he does not have a fighting chance as Konoha's greatest threat – against myself of course – Shisui-kun is certainly and intriguing child, certainly a prodigy inasmuch as yourself," Madara reflects out loud once he understands the… bigger… picture, tucking a finger under his many wobbling chins. "Very well, I will generously assist you in this endeavor."

_You may wish to help yourself first. _"I am humbled by the, ah, bulk of your benevolence, Madara-san," lies Itachi outrageously.

As his nature was not that of a normal man who would simply_ flesh out_ a plan, Madara pulls out all the stops and projects a miniature Kabuki play on it, starring himself of course, and all those squishy, fat blobs attempting artistry and panache are strangely cute.

"Acquaint yourself closely with Shisui-kun, until you are as intimate as…as brothers… surely you've heard all the brotherly epics about the delightful Izuna and myself, our startling heroics and outstanding battles –"

"There is the story about who could pee the farthest across the Nakano, and your brother tried to win by standing on your shoulders, except it didn't work so well because –"

Itachi shuts up. Madara makes a mental note to burn down the clan history archives.

"Mother told it to discourage Sasuke from being too unruly."

Madara makes a mental note to sit on Uchiha Mikoto.

"Nevermind – just befriend Shisui-kun until it can be considered that he is your most precious person, then you will kill him. He will not expect it."

Madara's words are as empty of intellectual logic as his grave was of organic matter – if the point is to_ kill_, wouldn't familiarity exacerbate the emotional trauma of the mission? Not that Itachi particularly cares, being admittedly psychotic, but the impracticality of it flirts outrageously with his irritability.

Then Madara smiles, and it is a horrifying sight that cannot be helped even by the Rin'negan or Botox. "Have you ever heard of the Mangekyou?"

* * *

The Nakano is exceptionally beautiful during one summer month, when the light hits all the right angles, and the rivers thunders smoothly, and the Uchiha In-House Squad just gathered up all the decomposing appendages and rotted bits that turns its waters (tasty) murky.

The clean-up is a grueling job, and necessary, a rite of passage for all incoming Police Force. The exercise teaches them discipline and self-sufficiency, survival skills and teamwork – all qualities needed for the inevitable mudslinging with ANBU.

When the water begins to clear, Shisui pumps his fist at a job well done and calls it a day. As his comrades cheer his mercy, he spies Itachi watching from the opposite bank, clean and impeccable and a veritable Victorian Era maiden complete with parasol. His face is unreadable as usual, and Shisui – wet, sweating, grimy Shisui who've just had the time of his life swimming after corpses with Inabi and the rest of them – feels almost sorry for him.

Itachi, he realizes, is an outsider among them, his cousins, and what sort of fucked-up family did that to one of their own? (The name of another esteemed clan with special eyes comes to mind.) Itachi is the future clan head, the alpha, the potential bane of their collective existence, enough to make even Shisui – who won Mr. Congeniality three years in a row – leery. Developing camaraderie with the Boss is a Senju philosophy, and hence flamboyantly gay in the eyes of the Uchiha, but Itachi is different from the previous Heads.

Itachi acted too much like a girl, and that absolutely exacerbated Shisui's need to engage him in some much-needed locker room talk while everyone else butt-slaps him.

Shisui is famous for being flighty, seemingly not just for his amazing ability to hover in mid-air for indecent amounts of time, but also for his unexplainable vulnerability to insidious whims and fancies like turning his cousin normal.

* * *

The Uchiha family tree has always been one to attract lightning, and maybe this explains the curious ritual of practicing drowning in the Nakano every second Sunday of the month on the pretense of survival training.

For the first time, Uchiha Itachi accepts the invitation to join. Shisui is undeservedly accused of using his doryoku for less-than-lofty reasons again.

A few of his self-confessed underlings groan as Itachi approaches the Nakano in fine form, with all the poise and silks of a traditional tea ceremony, failing to look even the least bit enthusiastic, and bearing breakfast which makes the rest of them feel like uncivilized asses in turn. Then again, Itachi always managed that no matter what he did. A lesser man would have been murdered for this trait.

But it's food and no one can really drown on an empty stomach, can they, and so everyone tries to express gratitude as best as they could without implying how Itachi acts like a housewife.

"Shisui-san," says Itachi, passing a tea-flask ridiculously emblazoned with Sasuke's face. "I made this especially for you. It contains Vitamin D and strawberry syrup, all-natural and very healthy."

Shisui ogles the pink milk. His hair attempts to curl in embarrassment. He flounders for an appropriate reply in the distinct lack of manliness and general normalcy in the situation.

"Strawberry, eh?" He finally chokes out, fixing his gaze to somewhere far beyond his cousin. "I knew you liked strawberries. Like your, uh, shampoo. I'm partial to chocolate milk myself. Practically lived off it just before my chuunin exams, just so I'd reach the height requirement–"

"Strawberry is healthier," defends Itachi, only the slightest bit prissily.

* * *

Shisui thinks he should be pissed on principle.

Here he is, trying to keep the drowning fun for everyone concerned, except the Uchiha sycophants refuse to cooperate anymore than necessary and starting cracking highly age-inappropriate jokes, kiss-and-tell tales with kunoichi of questionable character, and funeral pick-ups. It is a wayward attempt to rile up his cousin, the man who can't be riled up.

Yet Itachi insists on acting just as immature by pointedly ignoring them.

Shisui feels rather like the wedding planner of a couple verging on a melodramatic break-up, fake smiles and inward-turned killing intent and all. His head is starting to hurt, and it's not just hurting. It is a sudden full-blown cranial bombardment that is as painful as his first civilian bar brawl and the subsequent agonizing hours in juvenile detention.

Shisui swivels around, limbs all turned to jelly, the world spinning around him as though the Sharingan finally backfired and melted his brain, and plunges face-first into the water.

* * *

Itachi carefully watches the surprisingly graceful way Shisui drowns as the doctored milk paralyses his body. He readies the body-bag with more-or-less the same detachedness as he bakes strawberry shortcakes for Sasuke.

Except Shisui doesn't die. He remains unnoticed in the water, buried under Itachi's genjutsu of his idiotically-smiling face, and is almost in second-stage asphyxia when the minor tsunami happens.

This is the single most traumatizing event that crosses Itachi's sight: Madara in monogrammed swimming trunks –plus-sized and dating back to the era when people generally didn't give a damn about decency or the sanity of others – diving into the Nakano with the same impact (and, possibly, intent) as the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs.

Itachi's brain completely disintegrates and Shisui washes up on shore completely free of the genjutsu, spasming and horribly pale, but tenaciously alive.

* * *

"I have not seen you lately." Itachi observes, suddenly at Shisui's side without prior notice, proving that ANBU quality reigns supreme, no matter what the propaganda (or their boss) says.

Shisui stares a little, because he is fairly certain he had seen Itachi from time to time, always under a different disguise, studiously following him. He decides to humor his cousin.

"Itachi, I was assassinating officials – and doing some modeling on the side – in Kumogakure. For a half a year now."

"What an elegant contribution to society. You must come to dinner, Shisui," Itachi invites, strangely unaware of the requisite minimum interaction before asking someone out to dinner. "We have to catch up."

_Catch up_ implies they've been running the same racetrack, which was certainly not the case since they were still wearing matching boatneck shirts and believed that their ancestors weren't absolute skanks.

"I heard," Shisui hesitates, already dreading the prospect, painfully aware of Itachi's tendency to maladjust to any given social situation and the dangers of refusing a clan heir. "There's a rotavirus outbreak in the compound. Everyone had to be sent away to Kirigakure."

"Is that so? Well, I had only wanted to speak with you." Itachi leans closer to him, almost a desolate boy looking for touch, contact of any sort, his twice-damned eyes as imploring as nothing else. "Just the two of us."

Shisui is self-possessed enough to stop the choking while it was still in his throat. He knows Itachi doesn't mean for it to sound like it did; but for the absurd heaviness of Itachi's eyelashes that cause his eyes to look this side of sultry and the distractingly feminine way he carries himself, damn if Shisui could differentiate him from his latest girlfriend.

He hadn't been able to refuse her anything either.

* * *

The polished silverware is razor-sharp, gleaming, beautiful and as inherited as their DNA which, by the way, harbored some terrible mutations. It contrasts with the more modern china, painted most ridiculously with the inexcusable face of the Shodai's wife.

(This is, unbelievably, Itachi's preferred method of keeping Madara away from the dinner table.)

Atop it is the ugliest meal ever made; so malformed that the only comparison Shisui can draw is Orochimaru's face without the gothic makeup, or Tsunade's without the genjutsu.

Itachi follows his horrified gaze and misinterprets it as appreciation. "It is a special recipe I copied in Kiri. It requires very meticulous preparation and uses the finest ingredients."

"It is… avant-agarde," Shisui says politely, wondering if Itachi hadn't actually spied a satanic ritual instead, and still figuring out how he was steamrolled into attendance.

"Thank you, Shisui," Itachi starts slicing bread with what might pass for a bonesaw with a devastating calm, and bids Shisui to sit. Then he starts lighting fucking candles.

"You look as though you have something important to say?"

"So, it's about the Uchiha. You know how it goes, right? I was just thinking you should transfer to the Police Force – connect with your people, mingle, drink them under the table, wipe their asses at poker – you know, get their basic respect. We're not as sexy as ANBU, but we're pretty damn close. With the coup –"

"I will consider it," Itachi says, with all the insincerity his heritage imparted upon him. "Why are you not eating?"

Ever pigheaded, Shisui tries harder. "Okay, we'll not talk about the coup – the banners and cheer squads uniforms aren't ready yet anyway – but we have to talk about the clan. They don't despise you, you know, they actually think you're kind of cool, if only you can show you have, uh, an actual personality." Shisui is lying through his teeth by now. "But you're always so far off that they – okay, _we_ – can be a little resentful. But I swear there wasn't any malice in selling your only embarrassing childhood photo to the black market. The proceeds went to charity anyway – your favorite one: _The Blind Leading the Blind. _"

"The beans are delicious, Shisui," Itachi points out, non sequitur.

"When you're head, we'll follow you absolutely – I swear, we won't be like the backstabbing and outrageously cross-eyed first generation – just give us one damn reason to. Make some sort of connection with us."

"Why are you not eating?" Itachi says, calm as you please, and Shisui actually feels the burn of Itachi's anger.

He cans the pretentious stalling / semi-pep-talk / world-saving discussion and takes a reluctant bite. It is astonishingly edible, though a little…off.

"Hey, Itachi, this…dish…" Shisui tugs at his collar. "It's a little hot – _damn_ – make that Amaterasu hot."

Itachi calmly continues slicing his diet salad – South Beach for the S-class – to microscopic portions. "I find nothing wrong with it."

Shisui takes a deep breath, carefully meandering around Itachi's penchant for dramatics when it came to his fiber, and asks. "Are you sure you hadn't been, say, mixed up the seasoning with belladonna or herbicide or something?"

"If it were that, _why are you not dead yet? _" Itachi asks. Shisui thinks it might be a joke, except for two things: (1) Itachi said it accusingly and (2) Itachi said it. Itachi doesn't joke. He probably has no idea what a joke is.

"That's a funny story, you know," Shisui grins widely, feeling the burning subside. "It was when I was in Suna and I met this dandy-looking guy – redhead, gorgeous like me, chewing out his genin about faulty puppetcare or something – and turns out he's an expert on poisons…"

And the night goes on with Shisui comfortably blabbering away, firmly slotted among the living.

* * *

One week later, Itachi is still berating himself for a certain lack of foresight when Sasuke appears, surprising six lives out of Itachi. Somewhere along the line, his little brother got himself an afro.

"Nii-san! Look at this!" Sasuke looks so proud he must have given birth to that… lighting rod… thing… in his hands.

He stares at his younger sibling, who took it as a cue to begin rattling off about wood and chakra and

_– wasn't Sasuke precious? So young and vibrant -_

Itachi promptly drifts off into a rose-colored reverie about Sasuke's childhood which most assuredly did not happen that way.

"…and this is how it works!"

Sasuke makes a seal, pours chakra into the rods and readily electrocutes himself. Itachi realizes his brother is even more masochistic than himself.

* * *

Itachi perches on a rooftop and activates his sharingan into Binoculars mode. When in ANBU, it's not stalking, it's reconnaissance.

_Target in sight. _

Shisui comes out a shop with lips red and swollen, holding the door for someone – this Itachi's death-honed senses detect without any margin of error – of the female variety. He tells himself the little (bungee) jump in his chest was frustration over his 4435th failed attempt on Shisui's life. Even as he absolutely burns in what is not jealousy, Uchiha Itachi does not endanger civilians. He likes civilians. They lack…hatred.

Shisui flashes a smile so dazzling it was a crime in itself, and Itachi thinks he might send a bunshin to_ growl _at whoever comes out the open door.

But out comes a little girl, holding two raspberry freeze-pops.

(Relieved, Itachi tells himself it was not any green-eyed monster hovering just now beneath his consciousness, it was only Madara instant-messaging him and this -while as mind-breaking as certain 80's love songs- was at least predictable.)

It is Hyuuga Hinata, whom he knows to be a genuinely nice if self-effacing girl and – through some bizarre circumstances better unknown – an _acquaintance _of Shisui's. Quite aside from being able to see through walls, she is feared by the ninja underground for seeing through people – a skill many tried to suppress with a constant stream of discouragement, Hyuuga Neji is rumored to receive a hefty salary for his exemplary services to this direction.

Hinata shoots him a gaze like a bullet at point-blank range, surveying him clean to his bones, unwittingly making him feel like no greater idiot had ever existed. Chills tumble down his spine and Itachi actually feels fear for a moment.

Then she looks away.

Momentarily dazed, Itachi rethought his strategy.

* * *

"Byakugan," commands Itachi, and Hinata obediently activates her kekkai genkei. Whether she does it out of bemusement or cowering fear we shall never know.

Itachi appreciates how Hinata is relatively easy to coax into service. Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that he didn't quite clarify her role in his grandiose plan to send Shisui up in a flurry of explosions and a rain of blood. It is a bit extreme, but he is done with vacillating over expense and collateral damage and bad press coverage. He will let Hinata deal with those details, should their security system fail.

(He is sure it will not, they are an excellent team and he might have to petition for her membership in his ANBU team. While everyone else haggles for Hyuuga Neji, he will have the real monster.)

But it does fail.

"Nii-san!" A voice shrieks in decibels that effectively tied with Uzumaki Kushina's, which was _really fucking loud _. Sasuke's face is a portrait of heartbreak and confused betrayal. "Why are you playing with her?"

Hinata instinctively steps backward.

Sasuke, shifting into rage mode so fast we missed it, flings an object at the unlucky girl who was twice in row now caught in the wrong place at the wrong time by an Uchiha brother, and runs away. Hinata, at this age, is kunoichi enough to catch blunt hurling projectiles. In this instance, they were shaped suspiciously like…

_Lightning rods._

"No, wait –"

Itachi reaches her just in time to be electrocuted as well.

The exploding notes catch chakra-fire, sizzling one after the other in a grand progression of destruction, and the world goes boom around them.

The only thing which saves Itachi's dignity is the knowledge that little Hinata is in the same boat and probably dying of humiliation by now. The two heirs of Konoha's most Noble Houses, acting like imbeciles together.

"Hyuuga-san, I deeply apologize," says Itachi, patting sakura petals off her traumatized head. Hinata seems to have receded into something further than comatose.

The next time he visits the Hyuuga compound, Hyuuga Neji acts oddly protective.

Damage control falls to Shisui, who stays for weeks on end in the Hyuuga compound in veritable slavery, shamimasen-playing and rice powder and all, repeatedly explaining that _no, Hyuuga-dono, it wasn't a declaration of war, Itachi was being a nut, is all _.

* * *

The mission in Sunagakure is Madara's idea. Getting increasingly disconcerted by Itachi's hitherto non-existent bad luck, he proposes to leave Shisui in the hands of the desert ninja, who - for mysterious reasons possibly related to himself, Izuna, certain desecrated temples and the foolishness of youth – are born with particular relish for Uchiha slaughter.

* * *

Itachi might be the greatest prodigy of his generation – top of his class, chuunin exam champion, ANBU – but that didn't mean he didn't have his moments of airheaded stupidity. He inconveniently forgets he is Uchiha as well.

Still, that did not explain the gigantic sandstorm after them.

Miles away, little Gaara is screaming in fear of his life and remaining sanity at the ball of monstrosity who taunts him with mountains of cake. This is experience will contribute to his need to never sleep in the years to come.

* * *

Shisui didn't think it would turn out like this. One moment he had been making faces behind people's back – because there were few pastimes quite as satisfying – the next moment, they'd been exiled. Not long after, the deadly sand had turned up.

He feels what might be loosely defined as desperation by the Itachi is completely consumed by the sand. Part of him – the one with the savior complex, which won him Konoha's greatest babysitter award – wants to help Itachi, but the greater part – the one with survival instincts – desists.

Making the worst split-second decision in his life, he pulls Itachi out by the crop of hair that remains aboveground – the outrageously stylish cut be damned – and races onwards.

It turns out that given a colossal burst of chakra, he could travel as fast as light, flying over the sand dunes, streaking across the air without friction getting a clue. He is flying, he is soaring, he is running faster than the damn world on Speed.

But it wasn't enough to clear the sand.

* * *

Itachi's misunderstood attempts to kill Shisui – which seemed more like flirtatious advances – are beginning to take on the proportions of a controversy. And Shisui, who was usually so unhealthily oblivious to the obvious, like the time he got fully hit on by a certain Sannin, is starting to notice.

But Itachi clearly has either a conspiracy or lecherous intents against him.

"Hey, Itachi –" He calls, fully intent on standing up for his right to live without fear of – not being either assassinated or molested in his sleep, because that was routine since he hit puberty – continually wondering which of the two it will be. But then he sees Itachi's face.

"The fuck, are you SULKING?" Shisui is cowed – Itachi is so unbelievably prickly he's a rosebush. "You're already too pale to be festering indoors! Unsightly, Itachi, very unsightly."

The pallor of Itachi's skin could have been inspired by a corpse, and him hunching like that, thin shoulders and tangled limbs. He looks harmless. Like a sheep. With scrapie.

Itachi grits his teeth, mutters, "I am not trying to kill you" and, just like that, Shisui's IQ drops by more than a few points in sheer incredulity.

_SERIOUSLY?_

Shisui didn't know Itachi had the capacity to a brazen liar. "So you were, uh, trying to get my attention? Because you didn't have to resort to –" He casts a glance at the massive shipment of awe-inspiring objects that may or may not be life-threatening. "– all those. And you really didn't need to dress up like an underaged hooker just to follow me to Iwagakure, or cook me all those poisoned apples, or try to blow up my house, or… do anything actually. I'll always pay attention to you."

Itachi's face is doubtful, like that of a trophy girlfriend, and he goes all _"Oh really" _(without the question mark) on Shisui's ass.

Motor-memory and the experience of a dozen such girlfriends nearly forces Shisui to retort with the usual _go to hell_ but something stays his oft-rakish tongue. Something big and clever like an epiphany.

He says instead: _Yeah – Really. _

Then, because it's the right thing to do when the world opens up and pins on you the terrible fate of _liking _the last person in the five elemental countries you think you'd like, even if it is in a roundabout way, he kisses Itachi.

And it goes on for a while.

* * *

Shisui contentedly opens his eyes, strokes Itachi's cheek and –

…skedaddles away just in time to avoid being disintegrated by the Exploding Clone.

* * *

Scores aboves him, Itachi observes his latest failure and merely smiles.

* * *

_End._

Despite everything, plot blackholes and rushed endings and all, I put more effort into this story than anything else I ever wrote.


End file.
